The PhD process is so miserable and long that it will turn any sane person to the dark side, yes.
And if you stay on in academia rather than get out of it, well you’ll end up pure evil, but at least you’ll be cloistered and can’t really do any harm to the real world.
Not exactly academia example, but I sometimes think about how Pol Pot’s former pupils later described him as rather chill teacher, and of similar anecdotal accounts on Mussolini as a teacher.
I work part-time with kids (and full-time in academia 🗿), teaching them robotics, and what I can say - little shits can drain your soul.
I just looked him up to see how long he lived after his arrest - he survived until 2023.
I’m weirdly empathetic towards him, because I absolutely understand his points, though I obviously don’t agree with his methods. I can’t imagine being at the point of mailing bombs out, then having to watch the world go from 1995-2023. It got so much worse in all the ways he worried about. (I mean, I can’t actually imagine getting to that point at all, to be absolutely clear- I’m not suggesting the unabomber was a good guy or justified, but the things that drove him to murder indiscriminately drive me to despair)
The PhD process is so miserable and long that it will turn any sane person to the dark side, yes.
And if you stay on in academia rather than get out of it, well you’ll end up pure evil, but at least you’ll be cloistered and can’t really do any harm to the real world.
Not exactly academia example, but I sometimes think about how Pol Pot’s former pupils later described him as rather chill teacher, and of similar anecdotal accounts on Mussolini as a teacher.
I work part-time with kids (and full-time in academia 🗿), teaching them robotics, and what I can say - little shits can drain your soul.
But given how often they’ve managed to escape containment, the reality is the checks and balances on the system are woefully lacking.
See, e.g., Ted Kaczynski.
I just looked him up to see how long he lived after his arrest - he survived until 2023.
I’m weirdly empathetic towards him, because I absolutely understand his points, though I obviously don’t agree with his methods. I can’t imagine being at the point of mailing bombs out, then having to watch the world go from 1995-2023. It got so much worse in all the ways he worried about. (I mean, I can’t actually imagine getting to that point at all, to be absolutely clear- I’m not suggesting the unabomber was a good guy or justified, but the things that drove him to murder indiscriminately drive me to despair)